reader response of 'The Effects of Media Globalization' (final)

The ideas presented by Mary Hickman in his work, ‘The Effects of Media Globalization’, can be mainly summarized as follows. Media globalization has many benefits, like improving people’s quality of lives. However, it is misused by some multinational media corporations to pursuit their profits. They only convey the information they want people to know and block the rest. As a result, though the number of media keeps increasing, people are not even better informed than before. Only the governments can regulate media, but they let big corporations and media merge freely. The idea of free market creates monopoly-like super corporations in the end.

When the author wrote about increasing advertising in media, she mentioned the Coca-Cola’s case, which showed how powerful can large corporations be. Since the income of newspaper mainly comes from advertising, advertisers play a vital role in diciding what kind of news can be put on the newspaper. I agree with the author that it is a terrifying phenomenon as media can be very influential on one’s mind. Many people who read news every day believe they are well informed, but a number of them accept the news they read without filtering or judging. As a result, they put themselves under the control of media unconsciously. It is very dangerous to let the minority manipulate thoughts of the public and even shape a culture.

In conclusion, media globalization itself is beneficial to human. It can make people’s lives easier and more convenient. However, at the same time, it can be a powerful ‘mind control’ machine. Large corporations could convey misleading messages to the public through it. From my point of view, its disadvantage outweighs the benefits it brings, and media globalization should be regulated by goverments.

Summary of ‘The Double Edge of Globalization’

  International corporations have long been blamed for environmental degradation, however, it has been found that consumer habits may lead to more environmental issues than the pollutions made by corporations. Many people accuse globalization of damaging environment, actually the evidence is little and there are other factors that cause environmental problems like turning forest into farmlands. Even when the pollutions are from companies, the local ones sometimes tend to pollute more than the international ones. Although globalization is not the only factor that causes environmental devastation, it works as an accelerator by encouraging consumption. This leads to an increasing number of activities like fishing and logging. The good thing about globalization today is that people can share information through high-speed Internet and gather their effort to solve problems and help people. For the bad side about globalization, it increases the emitted pollution, which poisons not only the local people but also global citizens. Governments are not working efficiently in cutting greenhouse gases, but luckily they do contribute their effort in solving ozone hole issues. This shows that with appropriate governance, environmental problems can be lightened.

summary of ‘The Effects of Media Globalization’(final)

Summary of ‘The Effects of Media Globalization’

Media globalisation comes from advanced communication technologies. Many people believe they should welcome media globalisation since it can narrow cultural gaps, make the world smaller and provide people with many conveniences. However, more information doesn’t mean more truth and narrowing cultural gaps may not bring people closer. Many corporations merge with media companies these days since media can help them to cover their unethical or even criminal behaviors. Moreover, international corporations maximize their profits by cutting production costs, which makes the top 5% wealthies people accumulate their wealth quicker while the rest 95% of Americans' lives tougher. Since most media is controlled by the rich people in advanced countries, the culture around the world is actually influenced by the rich minority. Due to the idea of free market, the government doesn’t regulate the media much, which causes an increasing number of mergers these years and created many monopoly enterprises. Although there are more media companies today, the news content is indeed less diversidied. This is because media want to maximize profits and they insert many advertisements into the news. Media globalisation is actually a progress of human if it is not used by some enterprises to achieve their goals and blind people to their unethical behaviors, which is terrifying.

My English language journey can be divided into two parts, the first part is learning English in China, the second part is studying it in Singapore. In China, I studied English in Chinese style, which is, focusing more on grammar and memorizing more words to enlarge the vocabulary. During that time, I learned English as a subject and only spoke it on classes. As a result, my oral English was awful. Since I came to Singapore, English has become a tool for communication. I started to pay more attention to oral English and tried to speak fluently. In the two years, my listening skills have improved but my spoken English still need some improvement. So I guess I have to work hard on it.